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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Nature Notes: Increasing number of signs of new season ahead

Although the weather continues to be quite hot, there are new signs daily that the season is beginning to make a slow change. It's even cooler at night which is a blessing for me as any breaks in the heat are great.
Not only are the virginia creeper (above) starting to add some fall colors to the green, the dogwood trees are forming more and more berries and a few of the leaves are starting to change which is very early for here. The berries will turn red in another month or so.
I hope I succeeded in bringing the photos in with a format so you can click to enlarge. The shot below has birds in the trees but they are going to be hard to see without enlarging. The tree with the birds never did get leaves on the top branches but I know the tree is still alive because it filled out with leaves on the lower branches.
There are still plenty of buds with their promise of flowers well into October unless we have a hard freeze that knocks them out.
If it weren't for the flowers, I wouldn't mind an early hard freeze. I prefer colder weather over the heat. However, I also worry about the farmers and I know that they suffer hardships with crop losses when we have a hard freeze too early and also too late at the other end of the year.
In the North Carolina piedmont, we are usually safe from a hard freeze after mid April and then usually don't have another until sometime after mid October. Of course averages don't always hold and it can be hard for farmers if the freeze dates deviate too much which sometimes happens.
There have been so many rabbits this year that they aren't even startled by me for the most part. They don't bother my plants too much either because of my let them eat weeds attitude. I have discovered, as I'm sure I've mentioned before, that rabbits will feast on weeds if they are available and leave my other plants alone for the most part.
My big crepe myrtle in my back garden is almost finished blooming but the ones in my front garden which have some shade from the oak trees are just reaching full bloom. The one below is about a month behind my others.
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12 comments:

Daryl said...

Such lovely photos .. I am so bummed that summer which really took forever to get going is now almost over ... sigh

Ayie said...

no rabbits here in our area just squirrels =)

weather's changing already though it gets awfully hot still from time to time

RJ Flamingo said...

I just love that crepe myrtle, Carver. When I enlarge it, I almost feel as if I'm lounging beneath it! I can't wait for it to cool down some, here, too, but for us, it could be Thanksgiving or Christmas, or Valentine's Day, for that matter! :-)

Cezar and Léia said...

ohmigod, berries, beautiful flowers, a lot of green, and rabbits!This post has everything good !
Great work dear Carver!
Léia

Leora said...

We are seeing lots of pretty blooms on trees here in southern NJ (I'm on vacation) and I'm wondering if they are crepe myrtles.

I love taking photos of changing leaves. Just yesterday my daughter yelled at me to stop taking photos of the ground (I had spotted two pretty leaves).

Caron said...

What a lovely post!

moosh said...

Great shots. So that is why my lettuce use to disappear, I didn't have enough weeds in my yard.

Nature Notes said...

We are having a couple of really cool days which makes me know that fall is on its way. I love the way your posts are always a journey, not just one photo. You can see all the thought that goes into them and yes, I was able to enlarge the photos to see the detail... Thank you for posting to Nature Notes Carver!!!

Arija said...

Great observations and shots. Love the dogwood which unfortunately does not do well here. The top of yur tree with the birds has died...probably borers of some kind across the trunk. I personally would leave it as a perch for the birds so yu can see them in the summertime without interposing leaves. You have a lovely garden, a multitude of rabbits usually denotes a good season.

Pasyalera said...

Those flowers were lovely. Hope your post some more. hehe

Carletta said...

We have a little changing leaves in the tops of trees here too. I love fall but I'm not sure I'm quite ready to see summer go away.
The deer got the rest of my rose of sharon buds so mine are all gone. :)
Lovely post!

MyMaracas said...

Just catching up on the Nature Notes folks. You have so many pretty photos here. You're lucky to have flowers until so late in the year. We're too far north for anything much to survive past September.

I agree about the weeds keeping the critters at bay. I think having so many here has cut down on damage.